Liam Gallagher in 1996. 'Manchester is no longer (just) the home of parka-wearing, vowel-drawling, swaggering blokes.' Photograph: AP

In the Big Issue in the North, journalist Gary Ryan has argued that both last year's launch of XFM Manchester and Manchester Passion - the painful TV 'special' depicting Christ's last days as told through the medium of 'baggy' - showcased Manchester itself to be "a musical wasteland".

The remnants of that fabled Madchester era are indeed still everywhere. Facebook will still report the most popular music in the Manchester network as including such stereotypical outfits as the Stone Roses and Oasis. An extensive Hacienda exhibition has been confirmed at the city's top tourist attraction, Urbis. And XFM Manchester - a station which delightedly recounts how it burst into life with an airing of I am the Resurrection - employs 'seasoned' scene names like Clint Boon, Andy Rourke and Dave Haslam as more than a casual nod to the good old days.

As Ryan points out, "you don't need to be Madchester to work here - but it helps" has become a mantra in some quarters. Although not just in the city that spawned a monster: everyone from Kasabian to the Twang will peddle that kind of scruffy laddish rock in any mid-to-northern town of your choosing.

Interestingly though, the creator of the Big Issue feature is a 20-something year-old writer who also maintains a fun and fresh weekly pop page in the Manchester Evening News. He goes on to identify a crop of new, local bands that mean something to himself and the generation that he clearly identifies with: the Whip, the Tigerpicks, Daggers and the Ting Tings, for example - all makers of fizzy indie-electro-pop that somehow have avoided suffocation in their hometown's stifling, history-steeped scene. They even feature - gasp! - girls amongst their line-ups.

These bands are much needed. If there's a city that needs to challenge perceptions of its music, it's Manchester. It's no longer (just) the home of parka-wearing, vowel-drawling, swaggering blokes. It can also be sophisticated. It can also be exciting.

But if the city is to remember anything from its past, let it be the late Anthony H Wilson's oft repeated refrain of "don't look back". In other words, it's time Manchester put baggy to bed.